Copyediting for independent authors
Copyediting (also known as line editing) involves a thorough reading and analysis of your text, working through the material line by line, and taking a critical view of the overall structure. This includes:
- Perfecting the language
Copyediting involves correcting spelling, punctuation, grammar and syntax and improving the flow of text by pointing out repetition, redundancy, clichés and so on. - Clarifying your writing style
Copyediting will help bring out your voice as an author by analysing tone and expression. I will ask: Is this text appropriate for your audience? Is the tone right? Has this point been made as clearly as possible? Could this be more colourfully expressed? - Improving structure
Copyediting involves taking an overview of the structure of the text, making sure the information is presented cogently. You may need to add subheadings, or a table of contents and an index, or to reorder chapters, or to remove repetitive passages. - Compiling a style sheet
The style sheet ensures consistency of expression throughout the text. On it I note preferred spellings, abbreviations, hyphenation, capitalisation and handling of numbers and acronyms to make sure these are applied consistently.